Welcome to ‘What Happened in Search’.
Welcome to November’s first edition of ‘What Happened in Search’, nice to have you on board. We’re sure you’re itching to feast your eyes on the latest and greatest news in search so without further ado, we bring to you, this week’s round up. Enjoy.
MOBILEGEDDON
“I want people to download my app because, well, it’s better than my mobile site, so I’ll stick a giant interstitial on the mobile site encouraging downloads – right…?” Wrong.
Google have shaken up the world of mobile with an update to their mobile-friendly algorithm penalising sites that use giant app install ads. The recommendation is that mobile sites use more user-friendly app install banners allowing users to actually find the content they were looking for.
You have been warned.
THE DEATH OF THE LAPTOP
We all know about, and probably admit to having a bit of ‘nomophobia’. Being further than 1 metre away from your phone for more than 5 minutes just isn’t acceptable anymore.
Now it seems we have reached the tipping point where mobile traffic is set to actually overtake desktop.
Desktop and laptop ownership is in decline, down 10% compared to five years ago for our younger millennial under 30 audience.
Admittedly mobile conversion still has some work to do, however we still think this is a space that needs to be closely watched.
A HEARTFELT GOODBYE
Like the Tin Woodman, Twitter has finally found it’s heart.
In a move to make Twitter easier to understand for new users, the company are hoping that by replacing the confusing favourite button with a simple heart, it will encourage more regular use of the platform.
We’d like to congratulate Twitter on the originality of the idea… oh hang on doesn’t Instagram have a heart… oh and Pinterest… erm well thumbs up to you Twitter. Oh wait.
FACT OF THE WEEK
When it comes to age, people between 18-60 all use search in the same manner. However if you’re over 60, you may spend double the amount of time on a SERP (all of an extra four seconds).
GOOD WEEK FOR…
The teenager Nick D’Aloisio sold his Summly app for $30 million has left Yahoo to focus on his Oxford education.
BAD WEEK FOR…
OneDrive will no longer have unlimited storage as Microsoft drops it after the discovery that people are using it for “unlimited” storage!
NOT TO DRONE ON BUT…
